Connected TV systems offer advertisers a way to reach individual households and go beyond traditional linear delivery.
That’s the theory. The reality is that connected TV (CTV) ad buying has far from overcome traditional TV ad buying yet.
In this video interview with Beet.TV, Jay Askinasi, Chief Growth Officer, Publicis Groupe United States, describes how CTV is settling down in ad agencies’ buying culture.
Market forecast
EMarketer estimates that US CTV ad spend will grow 48.6% year over year (YoY) to $13.41 billion. That is a small portion of the circa $70 million total US TV ad marketplace.
But the market is changing.
“The big (TV) negotiations … still happen in the traditional upfront time period of June through the summer … and get placed on that broadcast calendar of October through September,” Askinasi says.
“As the platforms and digital publishers become more relevant and more prominent in the long form premium content game, more of that inventory gets pushed into the upfront process.”
Proliferating platforms
Whilst those new entrants offer new advertising opportunities, however, they also usher in new complexity.
Buyers’ grumble goes on – buying ad campaigns across connected TV platforms is difficult due to lack of standardization across separate services.
“There’s been a real change in the quality of inventory that’s available through CTV channels, through new providers, through Amazon, through Roku, through traditional media companies that have started or bought streaming services,” Askinasi says.
“You have end points that are seemingly endless for the media companies to manage. It’s really hard to nail down how to plan and buy CTV.”
The tipping point
He observes two broad uses of CTV in the buyer mix today:
- Linear extension – “on the same age and gender as linear television extended into the same environments through a CTV channel”.
- Audience-based buying – “most of that today, I would say, is still not the linear dollars per se. I think you’ll see a shift in that this year, but it still hasn’t reached mass adoption.”
So, when is the change coming? Askinasi has a clear answer.
“That tipping point will start to happen as more traditional companies migrate their inventory from very legacy archaic systems into everything being DAI (dynamic ad insertion), the inventory avail systems coming together between digital and linear.”
You are watching “Optimizing a Rapidly Converging TV & Video Marketplace: What’s Next,” a Beet.TV leadership series presented by Amobee. For more videos, please visit this page.
